Night at the Museum
by the dread pirate buttercup
Summary: It would be foolish to think that Rory could sit around for 2000 years without a particular someone showing rather too much interest in his cubic charge. But the Doctor is the Doctor, and no-one -neither Rory nor Clara - can predict what will happen when he shows up one stormy November night in 1985.


The Last Centurian was at his post. The frightful November night was long for many, and Rory was not exempt. He slouched in his chair and thumbed through his borrowed copy of a truly appalling book. Silicon chips and two thousand years were still not enough to unravel the workings of a woman's brain. 'Take this book for example,' he thought to himself 'so bad that it should come with a health warning. Yet Clara acted like nothing finer had or could be ever conceived.'

He dropped it in disgust, and instead turned to finish the crossword in the paper when his walkie talkie sneezed.

"Good evening Clara."

"Evening." Croaked the walkie talkie

"You know," started Rory "You could take a night off…"

"I've only been here a week! I'm not taking sick leave already!"

"Yes but…"

"… first woman to get a decent position. I'm representing all that women can do and I'm not going to bloody well ruin it all taking sick leave after a week for a stupid little sniffle…" Rory had no doubts she would have continued her tirade if her voice had held out. He could imagine her still standing giving her walkie talkie a good tongue-lashing with nothing breaking free from her mouth except germ infested spittle. Lovely thought.

"I know. Fine. I get it. Do you want your book back? Its close proximity to my person is putrefying my brain and probably other organs"

The walkie talkie huffed. "I'm going to do a round of the second floor." Then Rory was left with a static silence. He tentatively checked his own internal circuitry for any damage. He lived with a mild fear that the Doctor's warning would come to fruit and the walkie talkie radio waves would completely screw him up one day. So close to the end too.

He glanced at the Pandorica, waiting patiently in the centre of the room. Soon Amy, soon. Give it another couple of years, and you'll be born.

'Not me though'

Rory had had plenty of time to think about his own existence (or lack thereof), and that of the world, the Pandorica, time, and different universes. He had formed his own vague theory of how it all worked out, but to be honest, it just made his head hurt thinking about it. At one point (17th March, 1603, a depressing day.) he wondered what would theoretically happen if he jumped into a crack again. The thought almost sent him into emergency shut-down, and from then on he focussed on learning Danish.

Back in the present, Rory frowned. He could hear something. Beneath the creaking pipework, the rats in the basement and thunderstorm that was having a tantrum outside he could hear… footsteps. They were not Clara's, because he could hear hers on the floor above. The plastic was not all bad.

"Clara"

"What?" came the hoarse reply.

"I think" but he got no further. There was a click, a whirring sound and his walkie talkie died in his hands.

The footsteps had entered the exhibition hall and stopped in the corner. A small blue light illuminated the figure of a tall man dressed in dark clothes and short cropped hair.

Rory didn't groan audibly, but he did have a sinking feeling in his gut. These situations were always tricky, and invariably sticky. Sticky and tricky followed the Doctor everywhere. Or maybe he followed them?

"Come on then." Rory called. He didn't have to raise his voice over much. The echo caught it and bounced it down the stone balustrades, round the arches and back again.

The whirring stopped and the blue light blinked out. The Doctor strolled easily down the walkway into the lamplight that lit the information desk by day, night watch by night. It was as Rory thought. 9.

"I suppose you already know that the museum is closed."

"Yep." he replied, briefly glancing away from the sonic screwdriver that was holding his attention to bequeath a wide grin to Rory.

"And so therefore you are not allowed to be here."

"Possibly. One minute." The screwdriver started making an intermittent buzzing noise.

"Hey stop that!"

And to Rory's astonishment it did.

He was not the only one to look surprised. "Remarkable!" uttered the Doctor, looking from the screwdriver to Rory. "Absolutely amazing." He leant over the desk that stood between them and stoked Rory's face, tugged his nose ("You went to town there") and stared at him intently. Rory, not for the first time in his life, was a little lost.

"Are there more of you? I assume you are capable of intelligent conversation."

"What?"

"Or maybe not…"

"There's just Clara and I," Rory gestured his head at the motley collection of skeletons and plastic figurines that filled the exhibition hall, "And this lot obviously." in a weak attempt at a joke.

"What? All of you?" asked the Doctor, squinting into the eyes of a Mogul soldier to his left. He buzzed it with his screwdriver. "Nope, this fella is just normal plastic. Nice try."

"What?"

"But you are much further advanced than the rest of you friends I've been tracking, and you haven't tried to kill me yet. Two things which are making me suspicious."

"Suspicious of what?"

"That you lot are up to something."

This was the tricky part about dealing with the Doctor, made all the trickier because Rory hadn't a clue what he was chasing this time. Normally, it was just a case of deflecting interest away from the Pandorica and its contents. Usually this problem was solved by a nefarious alien plot to take over the Earth. This time though, the Doctor didn't seem to care two straws about the mysterious cube twenty metres behind him. In which case… why was he here? And who did he think Rory was?

He thought Clara had found the answer twenty seconds later.

"Rory! You need to come up to Egyptian. Right. Now. You are not going to believe this."

It appeared that the Doctor had _not_ permanently incapacitated his walkie talkie.

"Those radio waves cannot be good for you. I assume that is the Clara you spoke of."

"Yeah. You realise this is probably going to be all your fault."

"Does she always sound like that?"

"I assume not. She's had a cold since she arrived last week. She says she doesn't normally sound like an angry frog. Now, are you coming?" Rory gestured beyond the archway, to indicate the marble staircase they would have to ascend to reach the second floor.

The Doctor shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets, but followed as Rory armed himself with his trusty torch and ventured boldly forth to rescue his colleague from whatever it was that was illegally occupying the Egyptian exhibition.

"Why did you think I would try and kill you?" asked Rory as the Doctor's comment flitted back across his mind. "And what do you mean 'tracking my friends?'"

The Doctor looked at him frankly. Then he broke into a wide grin that stretched across his face "I have that effect on people. As for your friends… well let's just say that nestene duplicates interest me at the moment."

Rory stopped in astonishment. "There are others? What are they doing?" He was proud to say it took a lot to surprise him these days, but then the Doctor was in a league of his own.

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "That's what I wondered. I was also wondering what a highly advanced duplicate is doing in the British museum working as a night watchman. Interesting choice of vocation, don't you think?"

Before Rory could respond however, a small bundle of fur flew into the side of his head, hissing and scratching with manic abandon. There was another at his leg, which by the feel of it had clamped its mouth around his calf with very little intention of letting go, until Rory lost his balance and tumbled back down the staircase.

The cat attached to his head had been quite accomplished at causing Rory a great deal of distress, but the wounds it was inflicting were only superficially skin deep. The pulse that suddenly ripped through Rory's sensory circuits was on a different level entirely. Fortunately, the pain didn't last too long; Rory entered automatic emergency shutdown.

As Rory started to reboot, one of the first things he was aware of was the warm buzzing at his right temple. Opening his eyes, he found himself staring up at the Doctor face. The expression writ across it was not one Rory could read very well, though he fancied he caught a flicker of relief in the Doctor's eye as he sat up. The Doctor pulled the screwdriver away from Rory's temple and stood, looking at his gadget with interest. Clearly it wasn't what the Doctor was expecting, as a small quizzical crease appeared between the eyebrows. It was momentary however, and Rory had other things to focus on.

"They're cats." he said, surprised, as he held one of the now petrified cats aloft by its tail.

"No," said the Doctor, looking down at Rory still sat on the floor. "But they look like cats. The jaws are irregular."

Rory looked again. "Vampire cats. Even better."

"Come on. I want to know what sent that pulse."

"It wasn't you?"

"No" The Doctor frowned. It was then Rory noticed the Doctor's leg. It seemed that he too had been a victim of feline claws and half of his trouser leg was coming away. The disturbing aspect was the two puncture wounds and dark green patch of flesh the loose material revealed. Rory brought this to the Doctor's attention.

"Oh it will be okay." he said already re-ascending the stairs. "I've been vaccinated. Interesting story that, but one for another day."

Rory had little choice but to follow him.

They tentatively entered the second floor. There were about dozen more petrified cats frozen in various comical states of activity. The wooden panelling had been scratched and several display cases had been smashed, but Rory was only aware of a giant throbbing green mass in the centre of the room.

"What is it?" asked Rory in a hushed voice, vaguely repulsed.

The Doctor looked slightly uncomfortable.

Rory unclipped his walkie talkie from his belt "Clara?"

There was only static in response. What was more disconcerting was that Rory's crackling voice could be faintly heard from within the depths of the green entity pulsing in front of them.

"Clara!" cried Rory with slightly more urgency. Again the muffled cry echoed back. He looked at the Doctor with one last look of desperation, but the Doctor's face was hardened. Instead, he once again took out his sonic screwdriver.

"It's eaten her Doctor. What on Earth is it?" Rory whispered, his voice laced with horror, disgust and grief. "Oh Clara!"

A click and the cease of whirring behind him caused Rory to turn back to the Doctor. He was a sorry sight – clothes ripped and torn, and his eyes were a storm to rival the on-going torment outside; full of bitterness, revulsion and anger. This was a Doctor that Rory had not seen before, for whilst he had caught glimpses of the darker side of the Doctor, there had always been sympathy, grief, and anguish. The Doctor presented in front of Rory wasn't vulnerable; he was volatile.

So when the Doctor stepped towards the palpitating bulk, Rory stepped back. He considered saying something when the Doctor extricated three motionless cats and a cracked, slimy tablet from beneath it, but thought better of it. If he flinched when, after a few minutes of examination of the tablet, the Doctor threw it against the floor with a shout of frustration, it was barely perceptible.

"What are we going to do then?"

"Sorry?"

"Well, we need to stop this… this thing," he spat "before it eats anyone else."

"It won't eat anyone."

"It ate Clara!"

"It _is _Clara."

Rory stopped short, stunned. "No it's not."

"Yes it is. Alabathic toxin. She got a fairly good dose by the look of it. Reconstituted her organic living material into basic nutrient soup, all held within a semipermeable membrane sac. There would have been a secondary infection- as it were- if Clara here hadn't sat on the transmitter signalling to all the cats." and he gestured the pieces of stone still in his hands. Rory stared at the Doctor with mild disbelief at his clinical, slightly distasteful description. Clara had been _reconstituted_.

The Doctor was either oblivious to or ignored Rory's disgust, and continued brightly, "Just as well she did. The cats would have soon entered a metamorphic stage – these are only juveniles. When fully grown they resemble something more akin to a crocodile. I don't think we would have had much chance against them. Immunisation would have been worth tuppence. Quite remarkable to watch really, if you have the time."

Rory had stood gaping through most of this speech, but had now found his voice- just about.

"But why now? Tonight? What?" his croak gave in to confusion.

The Doctor had the grace to blanch at this point. "It's a security system."

Rory blinked

"It was activated when it detected a disturbance in the temporal schism."

"So I was right." Rory said flatly. "This is all your fault. Clara is dead because of you."

The Doctor was at least decency to look sorry.

"Why are you even here?" asked Rory bitterly. This had turned into a horrid evening. Not his worst over the years, but it was up there.

"I had reason to be interested in Nestene Duplicates. There was a population bloom in…" he checked himself. "There was a population bloom over a certain period of time. Very simple. Early succession level. Then I picked you up quite by accident, floating around here in 1985. Still about thirty years off my area of interest, but then you should never ignore a coincidence."

"Maybe you should have."

"Maybe I should."

"What are we going to do in here?"

"Blame it on the damp. Humans will believe anything if they can make it make sense, and ignore anything that doesn't. Handy trait in situations like this."

"Really." replied Rory coldly

"You'll be amazing. I, on the other hand, have an appointment I will be late for, so I had better dash." He made to leave, but paused "Unless you want to come with me?"

"No, no thank you Doctor."

For the Last Centurian had a duty to his post. The frightful November night was long for many, and Rory had by no means been exempt. Alone, he began the long process of clearing up, grieving for Clara, and attempting to come up with a slightly more plausible story than damp.


End file.
